This chapter is significantly shorter than chapter 3, but next chapter will hopefully be longer (I need to rewatch the episode, so I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure it will be longer.

This story is kind of a round about story. Something happens that makes it seem like the entire story has been changed, and then something else happens that puts them back at square one. Just a fair warning on that.

Also, I did get a reviewer asking about Leo's friendship with Mike. I decided on having him have a strong bond with Mike because I didn't see him and Dustin having a strong bond. Lucas was entirely out of the question, due to his suspicious attitude and dislike of Leo. I thought Leo would be good friends with Will, but since Will is currently unavailable, Mike was the most likely option.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

"Do you really think the weirdo knows where Will is?" Lucas asked Mike.

It was the following day, and Eleven was fiddling with the super con. He felt like he was so close to finding the right station, but every time he thought he got it right, he was wrong. Eleven knew it would be a lot of work, but he honestly thought he'd be able to figure it out within a few hours. He'd been working on it for maybe five hours total, trying to find the right station, and he wasn't getting any closer.

Mike nodded. "I think he does. We just tell our parents we have AV club after school. That should give us at least a few hours for Operation Merkwood."

"I have supplies," Lucas added as he rifled through his backpack. "Binoculars from 'Nam. Army knife, also from 'Nam. Hammer, camouflage bandana. And the wrist rocket," he finished, flourishing a sling shot with yellow bands.

Wow. So impressive, Eleven thought, sarcastically. He didn't say that aloud, though. He was already on thin ice with Lucas.

Eleven didn't know why Lucas hated him so much. Sure, he was a stranger, and Lucas seemed kind of suspicious, but Lucas seemed to hate him with a burning passion. And for the life of him, Eleven couldn't figure out why.

"You will always be the outsider, the seventh wheel. You will not find a place among your brethren."

Eleven jumped.

What on earth was that?

Eleven glanced around and saw no one except for Lucas, Mike, and Dustin, who didn't seem to have heard anything.

"You're going to take out the Demigorgan with a sling shot?" Dustin asked.

"First of all, it's a wrist rocket," Lucas corrected.

"Call it what you want, it's still a sling shot," Eleven called.

"No one asked you," Lucas snapped. Mike looked like he was about to defend Eleven, but Lucas cut him off. "Second of all, the Demigorgan isn't real, but if there is something out there, I'm going to shoot it in the eye and blind it," Lucas said, snapping the bands of the sling shot- sorry, wrist rocket- and causing Dustin to jump.

"What if it doesn't have eyes?" Eleven asked.

"Does it?" Lucas asked.

Eleven shrugged. "I honestly don't know."

"Have you seen it before?" Lucas asked, suspiciously. "Do you even know what it is?"

Eleven sighed. "I can't tell you everything. It's for your own good. I've only seen it once, and I… I don't know what it is."

With that vague statement, Eleven turned back to the walkie talkie while Mike turned to Dustin.

"What did you bring, Dustin?" Mike asked.

Dustin smiled and turned his bag upside down, dumping the contents on the card table.

"Nutty bars, Pringles, smartees, apple, banana, and trail mix," he answered, smiling and revealing his baby teeth.

Mike and Lucas stared at him.

"We need energy for our travels," he pointed out. "For stama. Besides, why do we even need weapons? We have him."

"He heated up a doorknob!"

"With his mind, and he conjured fire from no where. Does no one else think that's awesome? Imagine what else he can do. He said he had other powers."

"I'm not convin- Ahh!" Lucas yelped as a soda can sitting on the card table melted into a puddle of gray and red paint.

"Are you convinced now?" Mike asked.

Eleven raised an eyebrow, and Lucas nodded.

Eleven wasn't sure why he felt the need to prove himself to Lucas. Lucas disliked him for some reason, so Eleven felt like he had to give Lucas a reason to like him. Eleven wondered if he'd always had this desire to prove himself; something told him, he'd always had it.

"Boys, time for school!" Mike's mom called from upstairs, and the boys scrambled to grab their things. Lucas and Dustin ran for the stairs, but Mike knelt in front of Eleven.

"We have to go to school. Stay quiet and don't leave. If you get hungry, eat Dustin's snacks. You know the power lines behind my house?"

Eleven nodded. He'd tried tapping into their power, using the electricity to fuel his powers the night before (power, energy, electricity- it all increased his powers, but the bigger the enhancement, the harder the crash. It was like a sugar high and a sugar crash), but that was beyond what he could currently do. Eleven would need to be closer to get the effect, and he didn't want to risk leaving the house to experiment with his powers.

"Okay, after school, meet us there."

Eleven frowned. "After school?"

School seemed like a familiar term, and it filled Eleven with dread… he wondered why that was.

Mike nodded. "Yeah, 3:15."

"3:15," Eleven repeated.

Eleven knew what time was, but he'd had no concept of time for... well, a long time. There weren't any calendars or clocks in the lab. Time in the lab was restricted to stop watches; people didn't even carry their cell phones into the lab, lest it interfere with the equipment (this story is set in modern day, by the way. Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Will don't have cell phones because their parents don't let them have one, so they use walkie talkies).

"Here," Mike said, handing Eleven his watch. "When the numbers read three, one, five, meet us at the power lines.

"Three, one, five," Eleven repeated with a small smile (repeating things helped him remember them).

Mike nodded and ran for the stairs.

Eleven stared after him for a moment before turning back to the walkie talkie.

He could tell how loyal Mike was to his friends, and he'd only known him for a few days. He could also tell that Mike would be lost without Lucas, Dustin, and Will.

Eleven was going to find a way to bring Will Byers home if it was the last thing he ever did.

Little did he know, it actually might be the last thing he ever did.

Eleven knew it was a bad idea. Mike had been very clear when he told Eleven not to leave the basement, but Eleven was very curious. Maybe a little too curious.

Eleven wandered the halls of Mike's home. He sat in the Lazy Boy in the living room and spent half an hour dismantling and reconstructing the land line on the table beside him. When he got bored of doing that, he started dialling random numbers (because why not?)

He dialed 800-009-0009 and listened to the ring.

"This is Camp Half Bl-"

Eleven quickly hung up at the answering machine, and he set the phone down and approached the television.

He hit the power button and watched the screen flicker to life. He turned the channel from one to the next until he stopped on one in particular.

"What are we going to do, Aquaman?" one of the characters asked.

Aquaman. A flashback crashed over him.

"Seriously, Aquaman?" Eleven was saying. "You just had to make the plumbing explode!"

"We were being attacked!" the green eyed boy Eleven had seen in an earlier vision pointed out.

"We're in the middle of the ocean, but you had to use the plumbing instead of the water that's all around us?"

The green eyed boy blushed as he noticed Eleven's point.

"Whoops," he muttered.

Eleven blinked and gazed around the room like a recently awakened sleep walker.

Eleven hurriedly turned off the TV and walked up the stairs, the carpet warm under his bare feet.

He immediately headed for Mike's room. He passed a girl's (by the size of the bed, his older sister's) before entering his friend's bedroom.

He strolled through the doorway and glanced around, wanting something to do until his watch read three, one, five.

His eyes were attracted to the desk, which was covered with wires and small machine parts. Mike had obviously been building something there. Maybe a science fair project? Or maybe something for his… AV club? Yeah, that sounded right.

Eleven hadn't expected a flashback so soon after the previous one, and it really threw him for a loop.

"Connect the red wire to the blue wire," Eleven was saying, leaning over a small boy as he guided the child's hands. The wires connected and created a small spark. The boy closed a small hatch, hiding the wires from view, and a mechanical bird fluttered its metal wings before rising off the table.

"Yes!" the boy shouted. "My first big project! Thank you!"

Eleven grinned. "I just helped. It was your design. Good job, Harley."

The boy tackled him in a hug, and Eleven returned it.

Harley.

Eleven blinked as he came out of the flashback, and he found himself on the floor with a nose bleed. He didn't know the flashbacks could cause nose bleeds, but maybe two so close together put an extreme amount of strain on his mind and powers.

Eleven glanced at Mike's watch.

Three. One. Five. It was time to go.

Eleven wandered down to the power lines, and he stopped short when there was a sudden hiss.

A cat.

Eleven had been waiting for a flashback to the lab, and finally, it arrived.

It was right before he killed the people who tried to put him in The Room.

They wanted him to kill the cat with his powers. Eleven didn't exactly know how they wanted him to kill the animal, but as long as he used his powers, they didn't care. That meant burning the cat, setting it on fire, causing flames to lick its insides… every scenario was more horrible than the last.

At first, Eleven tried. He was scared of Papa and The Men. He had the burning desire to do what they said.

But the cat began hissing and meowing in pain as Eleven's powers began to increase its body heat to unbearable temperatures. If Eleven pushed any farther, a fire was inevitable.

Eleven couldn't do it. The cat was in so much pain, and the cat had never done anything to him. He refused to hurt an innocent animal. Or person, for that matter, and he was pretty sure Papa would eventually make him do that.

Eleven ripped the suction cups from his forehead and shook his head at Papa.

That was why he killed The Men. Eleven had pushed his powers, and then, he'd never given in and used them. It was like tipping on the back legs of your chair and barely stopping yourself from falling. If you don't check yourself, falling cannot be avoided. That's how Eleven's powers worked. Eleven pushed his powers until he was on the brink of using them, and he hadn't had time to cool himself down, to get his powers back in check, before his emotions spiraled out of control when he was taken to The Room. His powers were linked to his emotions, and the months of pent up fear and rage and betrayal poured out of him, triggering his powers.

He killed two men. The fact that they had done bad things to him didn't help Eleven when he tried to justify the murder he committed.

"Evan!"

Eleven turned and saw Mike and his two friends walking towards him with their bikes.

"You okay?" Mike asked.

Eleven nodded, even though he wanted to say no. Saying no would mean he'd have to answer a lot of difficult questions, so he said yes.

Mike nodded. "Hop on," he said, patting the seat of his bike. "We only have a few hours."

Eleven hopped on behind Mike, and the four boys were off.

"Mike," Eleven said as they were walking through the woods, and he gestured to Mike's chin. He hadn't noticed it before, but there was a large cut on the boy's chin.

"Oh, I… fell… at recess."

Eleven raised an eyebrow. "Don't lie to me."

Mike sighed. "I got pushed by this mouth breather Troy. I don't know why I didn't just tell you. Half the town knows I get pushed around by Troy."

"Mike," Eleven said, slowly. "I understand."

And he did. He understood the humiliation of being pushed around, the confusion as to why this was happening to him when he had done nothing wrong. He knew the hurt and betrayal and anger that whirled inside of him when someone hurt him- physically or mentally- and he was unable or unwilling to strike back.

Somehow, Eleven knew he had known and understood this emotional ache long before he entered the lab.

Now if only he could figure out what had happened, where he'd been, and who he'd been before he entered that awful lab.

It was getting dark when Eleven finally stopped in his tracks.

He stared at the house before him, the pull in his chest easing.

Will.

"Will," Eleven voiced.

"This is where he lives," Mike said.

"Hiding," Eleven spoke, the energy of tracking Will with his powers rendering him almost speechless.

"No, this is where he lives," Mike repeated.

"What are we doing here?" Lucas demanded.

"He says Will is hiding here," Mike stated.

"I swear if we walked all the way out here for nothing…" Dustin exclaimed.

"Right here."

Eleven froze and looked around.

Will. He'd heard him. That meant he was here. Now how could he prove it to the other boys?

"That's exactly what we did! He doesn't know what he's talking about!" Lucas was saying when Eleven returned to the here and now.

"Guys!" Dustin yelled, and they followed his gaze to see multiple police cars, Fire trucks, and an ambulance racing towards the same location.

"Will," Mike murmured in horror.

Can't be, Eleven thought, but he got on Mike's bike and rode with them, following the sirens.

They arrived at a quarry and ducked behind a fire truck to watch.

Two men were lifting a boy out of the water and onto an orange raft/boat thing.

"It can't be Will," Mike whispered.

"It's Will," Lucas confirmed as the boy floated closer to the shore on the raft.

Mike began to walk towards his bike, and Eleven reached for his arm.

"Mike-"

Mike slapped his hand away. "Mike? You were supposed to help us find him alive! What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?"

"What is wrong with you? Murderer! Diablo!"

Eleven blinked, trying to drown out the distant memory of similar words, as he watched Mike mount his bike and begin to pedal away.

"Mike, don't do this man!" Lucas called, tears dripping down his face.

"Mike!" Dustin yelled, but Mike had already vanished into the distance.

"Not Will," Eleven mumbled, but Dustin and Lucas were too distraught to hear him.

He knew the boy wasn't Will. Now, how could he prove that to Mike, Dustin, and Lucas?

He had an idea.

Okay, I'm curious. For those of you that have seen these shows/read the book, which do you like the best?

1. Gravity Falls

2. Stuck In the Middle

3. Lab Rats, 2012

4. Harry Potter

I have story ideas for all of these and once I update some other stories of mine, I'll be writing one of them, so which show/book do you like the best out of those four?

Thanks for reading the latest chapter of Control! See you next time!